Hina should draft a map of fingerprints to evaluate the quality of its vast pool of traditional Chinese medicine, or TCM, a Chinese scientist has suggested.
　　The map could facilitate TCM being recognized by the international medicine market and particularly Western customers, according to Guo De'an, a researcher at the Medicine School of Beijing University.

The map of fingerprints will be a file book of statistics and indicators of specific types of TCM.

Each type is supposed to have a set of indicators to define its quality and distinguish itself from fake goods.

With this kind of evaluation system, chemists can more easily evaluate specific medicines.

"It's like human's fingerprints," Guo said. "Each person has unique fingerprints - and so does medicine."

This map would work as a pathfinder towards high-quality, real medicines, he said.

He noted such a map could be of particular use to TCM, which has been plagued by fake goods for thousands of years.

This is partly because of the characteristics of traditional Chinese medicine and the relevant therapies, according to Guo.

Unlike Western medicine, Chinese medicine mainly consists of herbs and animal tissues as well as a small number of minerals.

Surveys by the Chinese Government indicate that there are 11,146 types of herbs, some 1,581 animal tissues and 80 kinds of minerals now available in China to use in medicine, said Guo.

The evaluation of these medicines has for thousands of years depended on personal experience, as it still largely does now.

The ancient Chinese found that the effects of Chinese herbs are not only down to the elements within them, but also the means of reaping and processing as well as the origin.

Chinese medicine differs from Western medicine also in the way individuals are treated.

Doctors can administer quite different medicines to individuals with the same illnesses because each patient's physical and mental condition is unique. Even for the same patient, the same illness demands changes in prescription because the illness changes with time.

As China tries to standardize making Chinese traditional medicine, the Chinese way of treating patients is being introduced to the world.

This characteristic further complicates medicine evaluation.

It has been a common practice to evaluate the quality of medicines from their look and smell, a process which is susceptible to fraud and mistakes.

Chinese history goes that the founder of Chinese medicine, the legendary Shennong (Magical Farmer), once tasted various herbs to determine their effects.

He was said to have tried 72 types of toxic flora in a day.

This method has been inherited by generation after generation of Chinese doctors, who still trust their eyes, taste and nose rather than chemical analysis.

Ginseng, for instance, a world-renowned herbal medicine, has always been evaluated by its leaves by experienced growers.

There have been many cases in which fake ginseng is made with radishes.

"The situation has sometimes become so bad that some noted doctors and pharmaceuticals even had to grow herbs themselves to ensure the quality of their medicine," said Guo.

Fake medicine has stopped TCM from being accepted by Western society where medicine is created and evaluated largely through chemical analysis.

Another reason hampering TCM from being accepted by Western minds is that its effect is highly dependent on the judgment of doctors, who may be very discretionary in deciding the quantity and usage of a specific medicine. This therefore makes quality control of traditional medicines very hard, especially in terms of large-scale production.

"To address the problem, it is essential to establish a set of scientific, comprehensive evaluation standards using language understandable to both Chinese and foreigners," he said.

Guo proposed establishing the TCM fingerprinting by analyzing the chemical elements of examples of the medicines.

By studying the quantity and composition of various effective elements in the medicine, a set of standards can hopefully be established to define a specific herb.

In fact, the chemical analysis of herb medicine has for years been conducted by some medicine research institutions in China.

The central government of China launched a project 10 years ago called the "Compilation and Quality Study of Commonly Used Traditional Chinese Medicine."

So far, some 200 types of herbal medicine have been evaluated in terms of their origin, appearance, micro-structure and chemical make-up.

Some of them have undergone trials to test their medicinal effects.

It has become a trend among researchers and pharmaceutical companies to apply for new herbal medicine with chemical analysis reports, according to Guo.

But using this method is still not mandatory in such applications and there is no national standard for such practice.

"Most of the chemical analysis of herbal medicine is not systematic and there is a lack of examination of their medical effects," he said. "It is therefore hard to use it as a guideline to identify the effective elements or effective parts of the herbal medicine."

In fact, some foreign pharmaceuticals fascinated by the special effects of Chinese medicine have already begun to set up their own quality evaluation system based on quantitative analysis of the chemical elements.

Standard medicines processed out of Chinese herbs, such as ginkgo leaves, have been produced in line with the system and have become popular with the Western market.

The American Herbal Pharmacopoeia, a civil organization in the United States engaged in the study of Chinese herb medicines, has begun compiling some Chinese herb medicines popular with Americans.

So far they have come out with medicines based on herbs like Chinese magnoliavine, licorice and golden bell.

It is imperative for China to compile its own criterion for TCM, Guo noted.

The map of TCM fingerprinting should be systematic and able to demonstrate the particulars of any specific medicine, he suggests.

Information about chemical elements in herbal medicine and their specific structure will tell the genuine from the fake and the better from the good.

Although technologically possible, the compilation of such a map has been frustrated by many problems in the pharmaceutical industry of China, such as the disorderly source of medicines and the big difference in processing and collecting means.

Last April, a symposium was held in Guangzhou by the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine to discuss the possibility of initiating a project to compile such a map.

"This is not a project that can be carried out merely by a couple of research centres," Guo said. "It requires the commitment of the whole industry if we really want to take our place in the international herbal medicine market."

　　From ChinaDaily.com.cn